Can a broken eclipse be repaired?

Question

Since a few days I can't no longer use the keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl-S because it inserts special characters into my sources. In a property file I noticed that Ctrl-S inserts \u2308 .

Is there a way to repair this, without reinstalling STS_2.8.1 ?

Solution 1

You can try starting Eclipse from the command line with the -clean option (so use the command eclipse -clean).

See also: What does the -clean parameter mean in the Eclipse IDE?

Solution 2

You can try changing workspace, it usually restores all default settings on modern version of Eclipse. A lighter version of that is simply to prune the .metadata folder in your workspace (as all settings - yes, including SCM ones - are stored there).

Comments

[stacker]

@TheEliteGentleman You're right I meant Ctrl (that was due to a localized keyboard)

[Jesper]

Does this happen only in Eclipse or also in other programs? For example, what happens if you type Ctrl-S in Notepad? Maybe something has changed with regard to your keyboard settings.

[stacker]

@Jesper Only in eclipse, the problems starts a few minutes after starting eclipse.

[Jesper]

@stacker I know that non-English Windows (at least my Dutch version) has a super-annoying feature, where when you press Ctrl-Alt (or something like that) it switches between US International and Dutch keyboard layout. Can be fixed by removing Dutch keyboard layout in Windows settings. Maybe you have something like that?

[matbrgz]

If you have all your sources in a version control system it should be very easy to discard a workspace and create a new from scratch.

[MartinS]

I agree, sometimes your eclipse workspace gets corrupted and its worth rebuilding it. I used to make a backup of my workspace but have since switched IDE's

[stacker]

@Riduidel Thanks, I already use a new workspace, any other idea?